It's been awhile since my last update. What's been going on?
We're still slowly working on getting the house set up. We set up another bookshelf and it was a large one and absorbed five cartons of book and still has some room on it. Luckily we still have more books. I bought a cheap set up corner shelves for the small bathroom that has no storage. I had been using a folding bookshelf in there but it is too big for the space so I'm going to move it out now and it may hold sewing things. Yesterday we pulled out and hung some art (a collage that Dave thinks I made and that I know he made and a large framed print that shows roughly the path of evolution from simple to complex organisms).
In addition to ordering the set of shelves, we also put in a big order for delivery from Ikea. I saw someone online using an Ikea desk as a sewing table and I decided to order myself one. It has drawers on either side of the desk that I am imagining will hold a lot of sewing stuff. I also ordered a couple of large storage units that will either hold my fabric stash and yet more sewing supplies or possibly more books. We ordered four upholstered dining room chairs. (I hope they're comfortable. We had ordered two previously that were somewhat comically uncomfortable, like, your ass would go numb in you sat in them for too long. Perfect for introverts who don't want dinner guests to stay too long, I guess.)
We ordered light fixtures to replace the Southwest style schlocky ones that are in the kitchen and dining room right now. (The previous owners of the house also used schlocky Southwest-style outdoor lighting fixtures in some of the rooms which, sigh.) We ordered some storage bins because there's a strange open storage closet in the toilet room off one of the bathrooms and just having toiletries and stuff hanging out in full view of the toilet is not my idea of a good time. What else did we order? Oh, yes--I ordered two tall glass curio cabinets, one for each of us to display our little treasures. In past houses and apartments, I've always set up an altar or shrine where I put little things that are important to me, but there is no space for that in this house, so the curio cabinets will hopefully be good stand ins.
We have yet to order a couch and I desperately need a dresser. (Dave is using one of his mother's old dressers but right now my clothes are stored in plastic drawer units.) I want some kind of small storage unit for the dining area and definitely some storage in the living room. I want a rug for the living room, too, and some outdoor patio furniture. I could not decide on anything that I have seen online and patio furniture is hellishly expensive. Easily as expensive as indoor furniture, which is mind-blowing to me.
We also want to order an elliptical trainer. But that is requiring some shopping.
It's never ending. In the midst of that, my water pik broke so I had to order a new one. And I ordered a couple of warmer shirts since it's cooled down considerably and I don't really have a lot of warm clothing. (Our furnace will get switched on next week sometime.)
Aside from the ongoing fun of getting the house set up, I've been painting a bit. I scrounged around in some boxes until I found a couple of sets of watercolors and block of paper. I found a set of water soluble Inktense pencils. The location of my brushes is a mystery yet to be solved, but I did scrounge up two travel brushes (the kind that hold water in the handles so that you can squeeze out too much water whenever you need water). I've been trying to paint a little bit every day at what we're using as a dining room table (which may eventually become my cutting/ironing table in my sewing space). Doing something creative keeps my brain from going too far off the rails.
I've been watching too many Netflix and Amazon Prime videos. We've started watching an episode of The Tick from time to time. I also watched the second season of Bridgerton finally. (It started well, got tedious toward the end.) And I watched Sue Perkins: Perfectly Legal. (I enjoyed it although I found parts of it bordering on poverty tourism.) It's a three part series and the end of the last episode had me in tears.
I'm not reading, like, at all. I've been unpacking books and tonight I pulled our copy of Fun Home by Alison Bechdel to read. It's a graphic novel that I haven't picked up in many years, but it's familiar and should be a quick read. I'm not up for anything too challenging at the moment. It took me a few weeks to read one article in the many, many untouched, relentless The New Yorker issues that are floating around. One of the worst cookbooks in the world is sitting on the makeshift dining room table and occasionally I pick it up just to marvel at the earnest and thoroughly unpleasant recipes it contains. (I won't say what it is because it's a favorite cookbook of some of our favorite people.)
What are we living on these days, foodwise? Nothing too challenging. I made sopa secca today to use up a lot of vegetables (carrots, half an onion, zucchini, mushrooms, radishes, an orange bell pepper) that might otherwise not have gotten used. Our dessert was a couple of eggless brownies from a recipe that I found online. They turned out well, but would have been better if I hadn't overbaked them. Last night we had oatmeal doctored to taste (mine had soymilk, unsweetened chocolate, vanilla protein powder, sunflower butter, maple syrup, Sweet'n'Low, strawberries and blueberries; Dave had strawberries, blueberries, half and half, and maple syrup in his). We tried takeout from Taco Cabana two nights ago and it was a total bust for me (my "chicken fajita" nachos consisted entirely of less than an ounce of chicken on greasy chips with canned nacho cheese poured over). Dave fared a bit better with his bean and cheese burrito and quesadilla. Neither of us is eager to repeat the experience any time soon. (Though I'd like some decent Mexican food again sometime.)
The TMI "Organ" Recital:
I've been cooking more than usual since I'm watching my salt (and caffeine) intake. My doctor had to switch up my blood pressure medications since my old one started to cause some pretty severe stomach pain. (I'd taken it for years and it would cause mild stomach upset, but within the last month or so the pain was bad enough that it was keeping me up for hours.) The new medication doesn't work as well (my BP has been in the 130s/70s instead of the 100s-110s/70s) so I wanted to keep from ingesting things that would raise my blood pressure. After a week on this new dose, I'll start ingesting some flax meal which has always helped lower my BP.
It's all complicated by the fact that my BP usually goes up around the time I get my period and this month it's been a doozy of a period. Perimenopause has been slowly sliding into menopause for a few years now, and my periods have been erratic at best. I've skipped a period here and there, but this month, no. So that's been fun.
Otherwise things are going. . . okay, I guess.
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